NTPC eyes long-term supply of imported coal

India's NTPC is contemplating long-term off-take of coal from foreign coal companies to meet the target of imported coal besides scouting for other sources.

“We are open for long term coal offtake contracts besides scouting for acquisitions,” NTPC Chairman Arup Roy Choudhury said.

NTPC did not find synergy with International Coal Ventures, a consortium of PSUs formed for overseas acquisition of coal blocks, and the long term coal import from overseas market by Coal India for large consumers like NTPC was also facing delay.

“Nevertheless, as the use of imported coal increases, so will the cost of power generation. Hence, we intend to cap the total import volume to a maximum of 10 per cent of our total requirement. However, there are some thermal power plants which are using 20 per cent imported coal at present,” he said.

“We would like to source around 70 per cent of our coal requirement from Coal India, 20 per cent from our captive mines and about 10 per cent from imports. The mines we have been allotted has a reserve of 1.8 billion tonne and production from some of these will start soon,” Roy Choudhury said.

NTPC wants immediate supply of coal, so it will acquire coal assets which are already in production, or supply, to meet pace with capacity addition. The company’s requirement of coal during 2011-12 will be around 160 million tonne which will rise to 240 million tonne from the next fiscal.

On investments, Choudhury said, the plan was to add about 4,500 Mw of fresh generation capacity this year and additional 5,000 Mw over the next 10 years.